Hey there Campers! Today at CAMP WHATAJOY we have “Survival Tips!” I thought it would be fun not only share a few tips that I have learned along my 9 years designing- but to also turn to my Creative Team and see what tips or advice they could share with us. I know that because of deadlines or commitments they have to scrap at times they may not feel like it with supplies that don’t fit their photos or mood at the moment- and yet- they consistently share awesome work with happy hearts!

Back Up. Always and on a regular basis.  I know I don’t have to really tell you this- but it just wouldn’t be right to have a list of survival skills without this one on top. It’s been said you don’t have something backed up unless it’s in 3 different places. 

I have 2 external hard drives, and use Backbaze as well as Drop Box. One of my most popular posts on the blog is this one that explains how I survived the Big Crash of 2018. You may want to check it out and compare the safety nets I had in place with your own.

I’d also like to share a little about my recent heart break with Google. My email account was hacked- and I lost access to not only my email- but everything associated with it- my Drive, my Google Photos account and my You Tube Account. It was terrible- but it was partly my own fault.  I did not have a crazy strong password and did not have double authentication enabled on my accounts.

Luckily, I had my photos backed up in 2 other locations- but so many of my You Tube videos were lost. I do have a new account- but it still bums me out how many subscribers I have lost contact with. If you’d like to make an old gal feel good- you can check out my channel here and throw down a like or subscribe if you like what you see! 

Never stop learning. There are so many awesome resources out there to learn new digital scrapbooking techniques and they are free! The forum and blog at the Lilypad is packed with awesome tutorials as well as challenges- and if there is something you are looking to learn, help is never further than a post away!

Here are a few from the CT:

“Jot the stories down while you can, use your phone, old school notebook, meta data spots, whatever because the photos & kits will wait but details get foggier with time and for me this is what memory keeping is all about” Justine @bellbird

“A great tip I learnt was when your tired of using the right (creative side) to do scrapbooking use the left side (organise your stash, edit photos, create basic templates) etc. often just working with my photos get me ready to tell certain stories and then I create again.” Stephanie @Eyeore

and how about these gems from Sara (@treecity):

I think challenges are a great way to get your mojo going again. And like Stefanie said, when I’m feeling scrapping fatigue, I do non-creative stuff. I refuse to sit and stare at Photoshop when I’m mojo-less because all that does is create a bigger scrapping block. So I get up and clean. Cleaning lets my mind wander, and somehow that “freedom” allows me to reset and I get my creativity back, which makes me want to scrap again!

Stretch your stash!: re-color stuff! Use hue/saturation or the color balance. Or desaturate a paper (turn it black and white) and use the fill tool on a new layer to add a new color. Then play around with the layer’s blend mode (mulitply, overlay, etc). Working with multiple kits on one page can really stretch your stash as well. Place a button or little gem in the center of a cute flower to change how the flower looks on your page.

Shortcuts! I wish I’d known that in Photoshop, CTRL + C then CTRL + J will place the copied item EXACTLY where it was copied (CTRL + V doesn’t always do that). CTRL + J is “new layer via copy.”

I moved my Tools bar from the left side of the screen to the right. It seems like a simple move, but keeping my tools by the navigation pane and the layers panel makes clicking between tools and different layers a tiny bit faster, which means I can scrap a tiny bit faster. OH, and I edited my Toolbar so it only has the items I use most frequently. That way I’m not searching through “useless to me” tools, like the 3D materials Drop Tool.

There are a lot if great tutorials on this blog as well! You can see a few of them here:

• Stretch Your Stash! | Easy Peasy Digital Scrapbooking Recoloring Tutorial
• Tutorial | Pattern Paper Cut Outs
• Organizing Fonts | How I Learned to Herd my Cats
• Why It Works | Visual Triangles
• Why it Works | Using a Shelf Foundation
• This ONE thing will make scrapping easier!
• Scrapbooking your Vacation when your photos are meh
• 50 Shades of Scrapping | Getting in the Mood

How about you? Do you have any tip or tricks you’d like to share with your fellow campers?  Leave them in the comments below- I know I love learning new tricks!

That was a lot of information you just read through! I think you deserve a patch for that! How about the second camera patch of Camp? Now through the end of the month of July 2019, Just click [here] or on the image below and this one will be yours to proudly wear!